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février 04, 2013 | North America: Colorado

Meeting and making new friends

By Karen Field

Cody and his new friends

Cody is a snowboarder and was put in touch with a pen pal student from South Korea. The day before he left Colorado for the games he and his Special Olympics Korean pen pal John (10 yr)had exchanged only a couple of emails. Once in Korea John's mom Jung contacted us to see if we could meet. John and his family, brother MJ (6yrs, Mom, and Dad Sung along with John arrived at Alpensia after a 4 hour drive. They met with Cody and coach Mike and John made Cody a book with photos of his life and family. The boys were initially shy but after a short time with Cody the boys were holding hands when we went to dinner. Cody's competition had been re-scheduled to the next day,so they stayed the night. The next day they watched Cody compete and bought a stuffed toy for him which they had signed and presented to Cody as he took the podium to accept his gold medal. Cody came off the podium and immediately found the boys. When it was time to part the boys were in tears.

About Karen Field: I am Cody's mom (and most people here know me by that title!) I am a paralegal and work part-time for Joann Fabrics. It was a challenege to afford the trip to So Korea but friends and family were kind and gernous enough to see that I had the opportunity to see Cody participate in this once in a lifetime event. I had never seen Cody snowboard as I have fibromyalgia and was not able to see him snowboard due to the cold and some physical limitations. I would not have missed this for the world and I am so grateful and thankful to have had this amazing experience. I too have made new friends.